Friday, Oct 16: Harvest Day celebration at PS 29

Harvest Day Celebration at PS 29

Friday, October 16, 2009
8:40 AM-3:00 PM

On Friday, October 16, Public School 29, in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, will celebrate locally grown food in honor of World Food Day.

Come enjoy a wonderful array of special activities planned for our community including outdoor activity stations (weather permitting):

• A fabulous fall lunch menu that includes fresh produce from Greenmarket and hand-picked fresh lettuce and basil by the students, from the PS 29 Children’s Garden;
  
• A presentation by farmer and land steward Scott Chaskey of the Peconic Land Trust’s Quail Hill organic community farm;
  
• Followed by Tom Chapin, Grammy Award-winning musician, entertainer, singer, songwriter and storyteller. In his set is his brand- new, unreleased, song entitled, Locally Grown, Locally Eaten!

Harvest Day Activities will include:

• Vegetable prints – Art
• Planting in recycled plastic cups/bottles – Science
• Drawings and letters to Federal lawmakers who are reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act; children will be given the opportunity to draw or write about the items they would like to see more of on their lunch tray — Political Action and Community Service
• Beekeeper Q&A/Honey tasting with Brooklyn rooftop beekeeper Megan Paska –Science
• Apple comparisons and taste tests of NY state varieties
• Local cheese taste tests generously provided by Stinky Bklyn, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn cheese proprietor
• (Live) Chicken observation Q&A with local Cobble Hill chicken raiser Martha Lazar – Science
• Hay bales obstacle course – Physical Education
• Composting and worms – Science
• Diversity Committee read-aloud - Literacy
• Farm Animals activity Science
  

For further information, please contact Emily Freund, PS 29 Garden/Food and Farming Coordinator, at PS29Garden@gmail.com; Melanie Renari Woods, Principal, at 718.330.9277; or Nina Chan Jalowayski, Parent Coordinator, at PS29PC@gmail.com or 646.812.0184.

PS 29 is located at 425 Henry Street Brooklyn, NY 11201

More BQE Lead Paint Removal info

Earlier this week we posted about the the Lead Paint Removal process currently taking place on the BQE (with info provided to us by one of our readers).

Other sites around the internet have also posted about this topic this week, and we thought it would be worthwhile to point readers to those articles as this is an issue of community concern:

Brownstoner: Concerns Over BQE Lead Paint Removal
Lost City: Are B.Q.E. Lead Shacks Poisoning Carroll Gardens?
NYTimes City Room:The Mystery of Those Metal Units over the B.Q.E.

Please let us know if you have any more info or encounter other worthwhile articles.

“FIND” Your Way to the Greenway Party on 10/29

Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI) is partnering with FIND Home Furnishings for a fall benefit to support the development of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. Join fellow greenway supporters on Thursday, October 29^th, 7:00-10:00PM for food, drink, music and raffle prizes! There will be plenty of room to spread out and raise spirits and funds for the Greenway over drinks & hors d’oeuvres from local restaurants, along with live jazz music in FIND's new Brooklyn home – a 10,000 square foot showroom at 9th Street and the Gowanus Canal. Don't miss your chance to win one of many raffle items from local businesses, including gift certificates to FIND Home Furnishings, all while supporting the implementation of the Greenway.

Tickets ($25 per person, or $40 for two) are available at http://brooklyngreenway.org/brooklyn-greenway-fall-fundraiser-2009.htm. For more information, call 718.522.0193.

Ultimate Burgers and Dogs

Walking down Degraw St. over the weekend, we noticed that a new restaurant called "Ultimate Burgers and Dogs" has opened in the old Chickory space.

Their menu boasts a wide selection of variations on the hot dog and hamburger themes, including a Korean BBQ Burger (for $7.75) with kimchi, egg, and Korean BBQ sauce, or a Tex-Mex Hot Dog(for $4.50) with chipotle peppers, pickled onions, guacamole, and sour cream, among many others. There are also a wide variety of toppings, condiments, sides, and other items to choose from, as well as a breakfast menu.

I've always loved the look and location of this space, so its great to see something back up and running in it.

Considering the low prices and wide variety of interesting choices, this is bound to be a hit for families with kids, burger and hot dog lovers, and more. The only thing that seems to be lacking is vegetarian friendly choices.

We can't wait to try it!

Check out their website here.

Octoberfest Celebration at Human Compass Garden - Oct 24

5th Annual Red Hook Harvest Festival

The 5th Annual
Red Hook Harvest Festival
Saturday, October 24th
10:00am - 4:00pm
At the Red Hook Community Farm

Here's how the email blast from Added Value describes the event:

JOIN US FOR A CELEBRATION OF YOUTH AND COMMUNITY!
Last year's event was an incredible success, with over 3,300 people in
attendance, delicious foods, and incredible performances. Join us again this
year-- bring friends and family!

Of course we’ll have our Pumpkin path again this Year! Lots of Kids
activities including Face Painting and Live Animals to pet! an expanded Farmers
Market! Music! and Educational Activities! All highlighting our work to build a
stronger, health more vibrant New York.

Great Food will be provided by the Good Fork, iCi, Rice, Kevin’s, the Angel
Family and Cynthia’s Soul Food Kitchen.

Motor Inn Romance (via Lost City)

Lost City made a post yesterday about the Brooklyn Motor Inn after seeing an ad for it at the Cobble Hill Cinema:

I've always thought it a curious location for a motel.....But I always suspected it was there for businessmen who had business in the area, folks who drove in, took their meeting, slept and drove out.

Apparently not. I was taking in a film at Cobble Hill Cinemas when, prior to preview, an ad for the Brooklyn Motor Inn appeared on the screen. It showed a picture of a lovey-dovey couple next to the caption, "Isn't it time for a little romance?"

Ah. So are they renting rooms by the hour, now? Honestly. Romance? The Brooklyn Motor Inn?

I must say I've always found it a curious location as well, and also assumed it was primarily for people doing business in the area, truck drivers, or other non-vacationers. Has anyone ever put up visiting family or friends there - or took it even further and gone there for a little romance? Either way, the Motel does contribute to our neighborhood's character and I would like to see that advertisement!

Also worth noting is that Lost City's image above doesn't show the hotel's view of the Battery Tunnel, the BQE, and the anti-pedestrian nature of the streets around it that result from these roadways.

Image from Lost City

Red Hook sketches by Stephen Gardner

Brooklyn based artist Stephen Gardner promises to post a series of Red Hook based sketches on his blog over the coming weeks. If they are anything like the one above, I can't wait to see the rest! Check out his site here for some other interesting sketches, NYC street scenes and otherwise.

Blighted Development sites

Brad Lander, the Democratic nominee for City Council in the 39th District (which includes the Columbia Waterfront) has already started working on issues before even taking office (as the Democratic nominee, he is the most likely contender to win in the general election), and we must say that the first issue he chose to tackle is a very commendable one.

He sent out an email last week asking local residents to email his office information about any blighted development sites. The email said the following:

Earlier this week, the Daily News published an Op Ed I wrote on what the City can to do address the problem of stalled or abandoned construction sites. The article focuses on 824 Friel Place in Kensington -- a particularly egregious example -- but as I've been knocking doors around the district, I've seen the problem in every one of our neighborhoods. Addressing the problem is going to require working both on a site-by-site level (bring together neighbors to confront owners and lenders, and to work together for short and long-term solution), as well as new citywide policies.

If you live near a blighted development site, please email us about it at info@bradlander.com. We're putting together a list (we will build on the interesting map initiated on the Brian Lehrer show) so that we can help address individual sites, and bring people together to work toward broader solutions.

This is a very important issue citywide, and our neighborhood is no exception. If you know of a site, we urge you to please send in the information and let Brad's office work on a solution.

An excerpt from the above mentioned Daily News Op Ed sums up the issue best as follows:

New York City has the power to do something about this. We can change the rules so that blighted construction sites have to be quickly cleaned up … or we’ll take them over, and turn them into something useful, like affordable housing for families who need it, or community gardens (if the site is a vacant lot). The main obstacle here is not money. It's our willingness to confront developers whose failure has become a blight to our neighborhoods. We’ve been all-too-willing to use eminent domain to help developers acquire property for mega-projects. Why not use the City’s tax, emergency repair, and foreclosure powers to help our neighborhoods confront real blight?

Lead Paint removal on HIcks St Bridges

One of our readers has been doing some investigating into the work being done on the BQE bridges on Kane St, Union St, Sackett St and Summit St.

Our reader, concerned with the hazardous waste containers, talked to Kieran Aherns, the owner of Aherns Maintenance & Supply Corporation which has been contracted to do the job.

Here is the process: every night from 12:00 AM to 5:00 AM they sand blast the old (lead) paint off the bridges with a special vehicle that is driving on the BQE right under each bridge. Apparently this is a nearly sealed process and the dirt is being sucked off by an industrial grade hepa vacuum that's part of the specialty vehicle. The vacuum part gets connected to the hazardous waste containers, which function as receptacle for the solids. Mr. Aherns stated that there won't be any danger to the public and that they're constantly monitoring the air quality around the work site.
We join our reader's concern with the residual dust in the daytime, contained only by plywood and tarp. However according to the PDF below, a number of Environmental and Health agencies approve this process.

The NYC DOT who hired Aherns does not seem to have more information on their site besides the nightly advisory: www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bqebridges.pdf

Images and information submitted by reader